Howard's Seven

Caterham 7 Update

Its been a few months sinec I last posted on the Caterham but we have been out enjoying the car! A few trips including a week in Pembrokeshire and a long weekend in Whitby - doesnt sound much but we have now done just over 5000 miles this year.

Last week, before we headed off to Whitby, I decided I would have a go at putting together a shower cap for the Caterham. A quick search on the Internet found a couple of yards of 4oz waterproof material and 10 yards of bungy chord - it was time to fire up the sewing machine.

I decided to keep it as simple as possible and have been amazed at how useful the cover is now its made. This 'prototype' needs a few improvements and I am already on withe the next version!.

We had an opportunity to do some severe weather testing when I parked next to the sea wall in Sandsend near Whitby and the waves swamped the car - although the shower-cap worked great.

To store the shower cap when not in use I put together a stuff back which velcros onto the roll bar behind the passenger seat.

The second project was to create a 'sun-hat' which would keep the sun off my bald head when we are stuck in traffic - ok so this wont be a problem for many people but being stuck on the M25 in 25c heat was not fun! 

The sun-hat fits to the windscreen as per ordinary hoods and I have used the Soft-Bits for sevens half hood straps at the back to secure it. Testing so far proves that it works OK up to 80mph with no problems - mpre testing and a bit of refinement needed to seal the sun-hat to the windscreen top.  

If anyone wants more details on these or is interested ordering one get in touch.

Anglesey abbey run

A bit of a Marathon this week with Sheffield, Southampton and Cambridge -around 1100 miles in a week. Car still running sweet and returning 39 - 41 mpg on average.

Found a few problems with intercom and interference if I try and plug iPhone into autocom and power it off the car - a visit to Bikestop in Stevenage to talk to their Autocom guy to get an isolator of some description. Apart from that the Bluetooth etc with the Zumo/iPhone works great.

Southampton or bust!

After yesterdays short marathon drive to Sheffield and back I am heading off to Southampton this morning. I was pleasantly surprised that I only needed to fill up twice so I seem to be getting around 39 mpg which considering most of the journey - on the M1 anyway - was around 70 - 80 mph I thought wasn't too bad.

Before I head off this morning I need to adjust the headlights as I was getting flashed a lot last night. I had put new headlight bulbs in a few weeks ago and I assumed that they would be OK without re-alignment, however after last nights journey I was proved wrong. So this morning the first job is to have a go at sorting these out - a quick wash down to get rid of the flys and head for the M25!

I will add a few photos from the day later.

First longish trip of the year

Off on a trip to Sheffield today to catch up with family. The seven seems to running great after problems I had with the MAP sensor a few weeks ago.

It's a beautiful sunny day so even the M1 feels good!

It was a good run and the traffic in the morning flowed really well - until I hit Sheffield and they it seem to grind to a halt. Having reached junction 31 by 10:45 it took 45 minutes to drive the last 12 miles to get to my sons house! 

the run home was great to start with and although the traffic was bad again in Sheffield once on the M1 we were flying again southwards. After a brief stop for fluid rebalancing - me not the car - at Leicester Forest East I headed on to the A5 to have a bot more fun - or so I thought.

The reality of the A5, one of my favourite roads as I used to plough it daily and so know it well, was that it was full of large articulated lorries driving at a steady 50 mph in convoys which meant little opportunity to overtake. This is where I wished I had gone for the Duratec engine rather than the Sigma as I would have had more power to overtake quickly - although I realise that there is a whole debate on the benefits of the heavier Duratec engine the reality is that more power can be liberated with tweaking.

By the time I got home, after a frustrating 4 hour drive, I was chilled to the bone and a little worse for wear! An early night is called for as I am heading for Southampton on Thursday to see some friends for lunch and then Cambridge on Friday - its a hard life! 

Autocom in the Seven

I had a request today for some photos of my Autocom installation so I thought I would put them on the blog if anyone else is interested. I had a 'spare' Autocom Super Pro AVI that I had taken of a motorbike I am going to sell (2005 BMW 1200GS 8000 miles if anyone is interested!) so I didnt really have a decision to make about which intercom to go for. After trawling around the web I found a couple of sites/posts that recommended using Velcro to attach the main intercom unit to the firewall to the right of the steering column as this kept it out of the way - but it was also accessible.

I routed the power cable from the main unit along the wiring behind the dash and found a power connecter just above the passenger footwell - not sure what itis for but it gives me a switched 12v supply and it doesnt seem to have done any damage (yet!).

There are a couple of options for routing the headphone leads and I chose to use 2 metre extension leads which are routed underneath the tunnel cover to appear between the seats. To keep them in control I bought a chrome cable clamp from a Harley dealer which is made for brake pipes on the bike but does the job for me.

I had a few problems with the connection to the iPod/phone as the headphone cable kept getting tangled and shaken so I managed to find a cable on ebay which provides a connection to the big bottom connector on the ipod which gives me a jack socket for the connection to the iphone cable from the Autocom and a USB plug to power the iPod/Iphone.

I am using a Garmin Zumo 660 which allows me to answer the iphone whilst driving *iphones dont have an auto answer option* and to do this I bought the new Autocom Bluetooth unit which connects the GPS to the Autocom so I can get directions and music from that as well - as if the iPhone/Ipod wasnt enough! To power the GPS and the iPhone/iPod I put in a second power socket next to the one I fitted when I built the car.

On this last picture you can also see the footrest I installed as my wife was constantly complaining about not being able to brace herself when I was driving. This is an aluminium unit I bought from Car Builder Solutions and secured using Rivnuts and screws. It seems to be ok although there is a bit of squeaking under hard cornering so I think I may have to revisit the fastenings.

On the headset front I went with the Sensorcom dual ear headphones with Autocom plug and got the Lotus 7 Club special price - I think it was around £120 for the pair. They are extremely comfortable and can be worn for long distances without being annoying! 

Not sure the photo really helps but but hopefully you can see the sort of thing - the unit with the headphone sort of wedges in your ear and is held in with a small rubber knob - several sizes come with the headphones as do various in ear foam and rubber earbuds.

Hope this is of some interest - if you have any questions let me know.

Problem solved

Just heard from Caterham that they have found the problem - a dead MAP sensor. This has now been replaced under warranty but I still have to pay 70 quid labour - oh well the joys of seven ownership.

On the train now down to Dartford to pick the car up - only a couple of hours journey.....

The journey home

The morning started out very wet so after braving the elements for the first 20 minutes I decided it was rime to put the hood - the first time I had used it in anger.

The first thing was that everything steamed up and obese thankful for the heated windscreen! The rain was pretty persistent down to Carlisle where the sun came out donut was a coffee stop atvthe services to de-hood!!!

Still having problems with the engine racing which I hope caterham will fix on Thursday and the speedo is still intermittent.

On route to Windermere for lunch stop.

Instrument failure and dead engine update

After a frustrating weekend with the car where all the instruments died and the thing wouldn't start I had a call from Mark at Caterham yesterday which solved the problem.

As I had originally suspected the problem lies with the speed sensor which is attached to the rear wheel. I disconnected this as advised and changed the fuse and hey presto the car came back to life. Apparently the fuse for the instruments also is connected to the inertia switch somehow ms this killed the fuel pump.

Anyway I contacted caterham this morning and I understand a new speed sensor is in the post so hopefully tomorrow I can get it back on the road ready for out trip to the Cotswolds this weekend.

The joys of owning a Caterham:)-

Not a good start - or no start at all!

After a couple of days enjoying the car blat'ing round the roads of Hertfordshire we hit our first problem. We got back yesterday from a pub lunch and on the way back we noticed that the speedo had stopped working - all else seemed to be ok, just the speedo not doing much. When we got back home I figured it could be a problem with the speed sensor which uses the rear drivers side hub to mere the speed using a transducer. I quickly changed into my boiler suit and whipped the wheel off to check that the sensor was still there, the cables were connected and it was adjusted ok. Everything seemed to be ok. Before I put the wheel back on I decided to give it a quick coat of Zymol polish to keep it gleamy. I put the wheel back on and was going to go out for a quick drive to see if the problem was still there - the situation had got even worse in that now the car wouldn't start and none of the instruments were working. A fuse I thought - so a quick flick throughout he manual identified the right fuse and yes the instrument fuse had blown. Luckliy, or not, I had some fuses in as I had problems when I was building with a fuse blowing when I turned the wipers on (this seems to be ok now). Anyway i changed the fuse turned the ignition on and still nothing - checked the fuse and it had blown again - aaaarrrrgggghhhh. I expected the car to last more than 2 days!!! Feeling very frustrated I ended up trying a few things but count get the car to start or the instruments to stop blowing fuses so it was an urgent email to Caterham as I need to get the car goings we are supposed to be going up to the Cotswolds this weekend. Let's hope it's nothing too difficult to fix. Watch this space.

Seventh heaven?

Well the day finally arrived when I could get down and pick up the car from the Caterham factory in Dartford after is post build inspection, IVA and DVLA registration. Although this all went well it seemed to take for ages although it was actually only a couple of weeks. The trip down to Dartford was uneventful and quite quick as I could get a train from Harpenden to London Bridge and then a connection out to Dartford - total time 1 hour twenty minutes. Caterham had arranged for a taxi to pick me up from the station so a good journey all in all. Wheni got to the factory the whole workforce was outside - a welcoming committee I thought - but no just a fire drill. So after 10 minutes hanging around whilst the rota was completed we all trouped back in and got down to the serious bit of sorting the paperwork out. As I had mentioned previously there were a few bits that needed sorting which I had either not finished properly (mirrors), got wrong (rear suspension links) didn't do very well (front brake hoses) or was just crap. I had also asked them to install a tonneau cover and fit the power outlet which I couldn't figure out where it should go from the manual. Anyway all this work added up to 14 hours work! I think it would have almost have been cheaper to get them to build it. Apparently this is not uncommon and nearly all cars need work to get them through the IVA - but I guess they would say that wouldn't they! Anyway, after the paperwork came a long wait - not sure why, but after an hour I was presented with the keys and the gleaming car was parked outside. In the rush to get in and off I ended up leaving my camera in the waiting room so sorry no pictures of this momentous occasion. The drive home was round the M25 - thankfully it was nt raining as I couldn't work out how I would pay the toll at dartford tunnel with the roof up. The journey was marred by an annoying buzz coming from somewhere behind the steering wheel which was louder than the exhaust at around 2500 rpm. I contacted Catham when I got back to check on the whereabouts of the camera and to ask about the buzz and I got a call back later in the afternoon to discuss from the guy who had been working on my car good service. It turns out that the buzz is from the bonnet as I have probably put the foam tape which sits between the bonnet and the car in slightly the wrong place to the bonnet is rubbing on the body. They are going to send some more foam tape through so I can reposition it and I bought some slightly thicker foam tape from Screwfix to do a temporary job until it arrives. Yesterday saw me do a couple of hundred miles around hertfordshire and I am sure we will be out again this weekend. We are planning a weekend away next weekend to the Cotswolds if we can find a nice hotel and the weather isn't too bad. I have ordered a Half Hood from softbitsforsevens as well as a draft excluder and hopefully these will be here this week so I can get them fitted for next week. I will post some photos later today.